{"id":465674,"date":"2026-09-22T13:41:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T11:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/22\/la-germania-contro-costa-sul-bilancio-ue-forse-ha-perso-il-contatto-con-la-realta\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T15:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T13:33:21","slug":"germany-criticises-costa-over-the-eu-budget-perhaps-he-has-lost-touch-with-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/22\/germany-criticises-costa-over-the-eu-budget-perhaps-he-has-lost-touch-with-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany criticises Costa over the EU budget: \u201cPerhaps he has lost touch with reality\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 More cuts and greater simplification of EU bureaucracy. In short, the opposite of what European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa has argued \u2014 namely, introducing new own resources in the EU\u2019s 2028\u20132034 budget. Germany has branded the former Portuguese Prime Minister\u2019s stance as \u201cout of touch with reality\u201d. These are the clear warnings of the German Federal Minister for Europe, Gunther Krichbaum<\/strong>, and the Austrian Minister for Europe, Integration and Family, Claudia Bauer<\/strong>, issued upon their arrival at the EU General Affairs Council in Brussels today (22 September). On the agenda for the meeting is the policy debate on the future of the  Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028\u20132034, and Germany and Austria<\/strong><\/span> are seizing the opportunity to reaffirm their alignment with the so-called frugal<\/a><\/strong> countries \u2013 alongside Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden \u2013 which are committed to fiscal discipline and opposed to excessive spending and shared debt. <\/p>\n

Krichbaum reiterated<\/a> that his government is calling for \u201ca reduction in the Commission\u2019s proposal by several hundred billion euros.\u201d<\/strong> He also stressed Berlin\u2019s opposition to the comments made yesterday (21 September) by President Costa, who, in an interview<\/a> with Politico, said that the EU budget would require taxes that national governments are not already collecting. According to the German minister, these are \u201csuggestions that are not exactly helpful\u201d and \u201cone has to wonder whether, in the meantime, Mr Costa has completely lost touch with reality.\u201d On the contrary, Germany is calling for \u201cgreater realism\u201d, because \u201cnational budgets are under enormous pressure\u201d. Berlin aims to send \u201ca clear signal towards modernisation.\u201d<\/strong> This means \u201cassessing which sectors to invest in,\u201d such as new technologies and artificial intelligence, \u201csectors in which we must not fall behind China, the United States and many others.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to Minister Bauer, simplification remains the priority. The Austrian minister pointed out that \u201cCommission President Ursula von der Leyen announced more than 20 new legislative initiatives in her State of the Union<\/a> last week.\u201d Therefore, \u201cthose who try to combat growing bureaucracy with ever more laws end up putting out fires with paper,<\/strong>\u201d she noted. While supporting the \u2018Omnibus\u2019 simplification packages, Vienna believes that \u201cthe order of priorities should be reversed.\u201d For this reason, the government will today present an informal document<\/a> \u2013 which Italy also championed \u2013 calling on Brussels and the European Union to implement a year-long drive to reduce bureaucracy. \u201cThe point is that we should focus for a year on the implementation of regulations, on simplification and also on the elimination of superfluous regulations,\u201d Bauer explained – a principle which, according to Austria, should also apply to the MFF. More specifically, its proposal for the EU\u2019s multiannual budget calls for \u201cthe total volume to be significantly reduced\u201d<\/strong> and that it be concentrated \u201con the sectors where the greatest benefits for Austria are expected\u201d, such as \u201cresearch and innovation, the scientific and business sectors, as well as agriculture and regional development\u201d. We do not need \u201cthe largest possible budget in the European Union; we need the most effective one,\u201d she said, seeking to summarise the position of the frugal states which, \u201cdespite representing less than a third of EU Member States\u201d, provide \u201calmost two-thirds of the EU budget.\u201d For this reason, \u201ca realistic landing zone\u201d is needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the General Affairs Council, Germany and Austria are insisting on reducing the total volume of the MFF and promoting a cut in red tape<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":465658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705],"tags":[26324,25871,26267,27175,26897,30062,27335,26590,27932,26655,26527,32308,29993,26559,27742],"class_list":["post-465674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-austria-en","tag-danimarca-at","tag-council-en","tag-finlandia-and","tag-council-general-business-en","tag-financialframework-pluriennial-en","tag-paesi-bassi-en","tag-paesi-frugali-en","tag-qfp-2028-2034-en","tag-swedenat","tag-ursula-von-del-leyen-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465675,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465674\/revisions\/465675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}